Steve Jobs on fear …..
by Sunil Bali. 10-09-2017
Although we’re only born with two fears – the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises – research shows that the number of things we fear increase as we get older.
Whether its touching a spider, making a speech or asking for a date, societal conditioning makes us fear rejection and failure.
Every time he was faced with a big choice, Steve Jobs asked himself, “What would I do if this was the last day of my life?"
He met his wife, Laurene like that.
Jobs was giving a university address and Laurene was sitting in the audience. He fell for her and wanted to take Laurene out for dinner that very night, but was afraid that she would say no and kidded himself that he had to attend a business meeting. On his way back to his car, Jobs asked himself “What would I do if this was the last day of my life?” He ran back to the auditorium, found Laurene and took her out to dinner.
They remained together until he died.
At his funeral, Jobs ensured that everyone in attendance received a copy of Paramahansa Yogananda’s The Autobiography of a Yogi.
One of the key pillars of this book is the concept of detached engagement which in essence means,
- forget about what might happen,
- focus solely on the task at hand, and
- emerge the other side of your fear
….. having done what you wanted.
Humour
A man and his wife walked into a dentist’s office.
The man said to the dentist, “Doc, I’m in a big hurry! I have two friends sitting in my car waiting for us to go play golf. So forget about the anaesthetic and just pull the tooth.”
We have a 10am tee time and it’s 9:30 already. I don’t have time to wait for the anaesthetic to work!”
The dentist thought to himself, "What a very brave man asking to have his tooth pulled without using anything to kill the pain.”
So the dentist asked him, “Which tooth is it sir?"
The man turned to his wife and said, “Open your mouth honey, and show him".
Live big & love deep.
Sunil
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